


The Heart Where I Have Roots

by isis2015



Category: Friends
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:38:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isis2015/pseuds/isis2015
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She loves Ross; a part of her will always love Ross. He is the father of her beautiful daughter. But whatever this is, it isn't them. Not as they were, or as they should be. This is the mess they have made of themselves trying to mend their lives back together when the truth is, they stopped fitting a long time ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart Where I Have Roots

When Joey announces he's going to move to LA, Rachel feels something inside of her shift. Everyone's lives are moving in different directions now. Phoebe is married, losing herself in that experience. Chandler and Monica have not one but two new babies. As time goes by, they all see less and less of each other because sometimes that's just the way life is. She accepts that. 

For the longest time, Joey had been the one to resist that change, but he loves acting. That's his passion and it's what drives him – and he's the only one without something, someone. He feels like it's time to move on, to chase the dream he does have.

She cries. She misses him. She doesn't want him to leave. But he does, and she accepts it, supports it.

And it begins to make her think.

*

She and Ross fight one night. It reminds her of so many fights they've had before, with a joke thrown in (from her or him) like that softens the blows any, like that makes it, in some way, less of a fight. With Ross, it feels like they've been fighting the same fight for eight years.

When things get particularly loud, she tells him to lower his voice. She remembers what it was like to be around her parents when they were going through the divorce. How they would yell at each other, often over the stupidest things. It was as if they'd been storing up resentments their entire marriage and they had all begun to come out.

She remembers what that was like, how it felt to hear them scream at each other and she was a grown woman. She thinks of her daughter, a few rooms away, wondering if she hears them, if she's listening or doing her best to block them out. She's three, but she must feel it, understand on some level what raised voices mean. No child should have to hear their parents like that.

So she walks away from the argument, from Ross. She tells him she doesn't want to fight with him anymore and walks away.

*

It's the twin's birthday and it's the first time the six of them have been together in a long while. Joey had moved back from LA six months before. His career hadn't managed to pick up there and while he enjoyed being near his sister, he was a New Yorker at heart. That was where he belonged, so he had come back.

Motherhood suits Monica – she had been preparing for it her whole life. The fact that she had longed to be a mother is so evident when she is with her children. She's a natural at it, and shockingly, so is Chandler. Rachel can hardly believe he's the same guy with that ridiculous suit and haircut that she met all those years ago.

Rachel watches Emma play with some of the twins' toys. She's a little too old for them now, but she looks happy so Rachel just lets her. It occurs to her that she and Ross haven't said three words to each other since they got here. That's been happening a lot lately – the silence. No one else seems to notice. Monica is busy with her babies, Phoebe is busy with Mike. Joey is busy with a sandwich.

As she watches her daughter it begins to dawn on her that the only moments lately that she has been truly happy are the one's she's spent with her. Taking her to the park, picking her up from daycare. She isn't fulfilled by her work, and her relationship isn't going well. Her friends have moved in different directions. She feels stranded. Was this really the life she had wanted, what she had always dreamed off?

She looks around the room at her friends – Monica and Chandler, who have made a family. Phoebe, who has found someone to share her life with. Joey, who had embraced the opportunity to make something more of his life and his career, and even if it didn't work out, at least he had tried.

And what had she done when life her offered her the chance to move forward? She had run right back to what she new. She had loved Ross so much once. They hadn't come back to each other so many times over the years for no reason. But lately, little by little, she felt that slipping away. Whatever was keeping them together was not the same thing as before.

She feels as though the world is shifting under her feet, as if she was looking at him through the same tired eyes that had wanted that break from them all over again – those words that had changed her life in such a way. Changed everything, she had said. He was never the same man to her again, he still isn't. They will never make it back over that moment.

She excuses herself to no one and makes her way into Monica and Chandler's kitchen where she can breathe. She braces herself with her hands on the counter and looks out into the backyard. There's a big yard, a swing set, and almost everything a kid could want. It makes her smile and then it makes her cry. She puts her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound and her heart all but stops when she hears the kitchen door open.

"Hey, Rach, Monica said there were more finger sandwiches in here, have you seen them?"

She wipes her face and bites her bottom lip. She doesn't trust her voice to say anything without giving something away. She doesn't want anyone to see her like this, to know there's anything wrong. Least of all Joey.

"Rach?"

She shakes her head. She can't get it under control.

His hand is on her shoulder and she realizes then her whole body is shaking. She can't make it stop. "Hey," he says, trying to steady her. "What's going on?"

Unable to fight anymore, to hold back her every disappointment crashing down upon her at once, she turns right into Joey and hopes that pressing her face into his chest is enough to keep the sound of her pain quiet. He doesn't say anything, he probably doesn't know how to react, just put his arms around her holds on tight.

*

They always come back to each other with the best intentions. That's what Rachel figures out. That's why it's so easy in the beginning, why it feels so right. Because that's the beginning, over and over again, when infatuation is all you feel and love is all that matters. But the day to day grind of a real relationship begins to wear them down more quickly every time. Old resentments and fears creep up on them. For ten years, there has been a tether between her and Ross, pulling them back to each other over and over again, and it frays a little bit more every time they pull back apart.

Soon, she knows, it will snap.

A part of her wants to cut them loose, Ross and herself, once and for all, for good this time, because it hurts too much, trying to pretend their love is the same or that it works the way it used to. It isn't. It doesn't. But another part of her feels that she owes her daughter a family, a life with her father.

They aren't happy, and both of them know that. Neither she or Ross will admit it out loud. They both ignore it, like that makes it better. Ross, because he can't imagine that they've come all this way for nothing to have changed, and her because she won't be able to live with herself if she doesn't at least try to make this work for Emma. 

But trying to fit things back the way that had once been hasn't worked, and all that Rachel can think about is all of the things that she gave up to give this another try. This was supposed to be the one that lasted, the time that they made it for good. There is nothing good about the way that they are, and she knows now that they can never get back to where they were. They aren't the same.

She loves Ross; a part of her will always love Ross. He is the father of her beautiful daughter. But whatever this is, it isn't them. Not as they were, or as they should be. This is the mess they have made of themselves trying to mend their lives back together when the truth is, they stopped fitting a long time ago.

*

She doesn't know where to go, so she goes to Joey. She always goes back to Joey, in the end, because Joey is safe and sturdy and something about him is home. He still lives in the same old apartment, the apartment they shared for years, even though he could probably afford a better one now.

He opens the door, looking at her and then down at Emma, who is holding Rachel's hand, and he knows. Ever since the twins' party, every time they had seen each other he had looked at her with concern. He doesn't seem surprised now, but he does seem sad. "Hey there, Emma," he says first, bending down and picking her up.

"Hi, Uncle Joey," she replies, giving him a hug. Joey looks at Rachel over her shoulder and she puts her hand over her face. She doesn't want to cry, not in front of her child. 

Joey quickly holds Emma up and looks at her with a big smile. "Hey, how about we go get Hugsy," he suggests. Emma smiles. She loves Hugsy, she always has. Joey takes her off to his bedroom to find him, and makes sure that she can't see Rachel along the way.

As they disappear into Joey's bedroom, Rachel braces her hands against the kitchen counter and takes a look around. Some things are different here now. There is some new furniture, new appliances in the kitchen, and the TV is much, much bigger. But a great deal is the same. The chair they had bought together is still sitting in the middle of the room. The place is still mildly messy, as is Joey's style. And, even now, there is still a lingering smell of bird.

She walks into the living room and looks around. She had come back here after she had realized how twisted her relationship with Ross had become, what a mess it had developed into. Joey had taken them in, given them a home. It's devastating to be back here again, but at the same time, she knows there was no place in the world she would rather be. It's the only place where she feels like she isn't going to sink into the ground.

Joey walks back out of the bedroom. "I left her in there with Hugsy and some old books you left here a while ago," he tells her, but she doesn’t need to hear it. Emma is safe here; they both are. So while Joey is talking she turns around and walks right into him, grabbing onto the front of his shirt in much the same way she had at the twins' birthday party. 

She cries this time not for the pain she felt trying to fix something that could not be fixed, but the pain of knowing that she is never going to be able to get back what she'd once had. Her daughter isn't going to get a happy family. It's really over. For good this time.

*

Rachel and Joey sit on the couch for a long time without talking. She leans her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. He doesn't ask any questions, he just lets her sit in silence until she's ready to talk. She wonders if she's ever going to be ready, and if she is what will she say? What is there to say?

She doesn't know how to start over. She's a thirty-five year old single mother. She has spent the last eleven years of her life building herself up to the person that she is, all the while surrounded by the same people. And now, life is moving them all in different directions. They will always be connected, she knows that, but not the way they were. She feels stranded and alone.

She's a thirty-five year old single mother. She knew how to be that once. Why can't she remember anymore?

"Rach?"

After a long moment, she says, "Yeah?" Her voice cracks, even on one simple word.

"You're gonna be okay," he tells her. She closes her eyes. She swings back between feeling everything and nothing. Between wondering what she's going to do now, not just for herself but for Emma, and knowing that possibly the most important relationship of her life has ended for good.

"You don't know that," she replies.

The hand on her shoulder tightens and he pulls her in closer. "Yeah, I do," he answers. She looks up at him then. She thinks back to years before, when she had come to live in this apartment with Joey. She had lived here once before, and hadn't enjoyed it at all, so the prospect hadn't thrilled her. But the more time had passed, the closer they had grown. Joey had become her best friend, and no matter how tangled things had become between them over the years, they had always found their way back to that. He smiles down at her and added, "I know _you_. You're gonna be okay."

She blinks a few times. She's so tired, so empty, so sad. Her world is upside down and she doesn’t feel like she knows anything at all anymore. Except, "I love you." She does. So much. It's what's getting her through this moment, and hopefully all of the moments like this one to come.

"I love you too," he answers. He kisses the top of her head. "Always will."

*

After a few days of sleep, of crying, of mourning, she had sat at the counter of Joey's kitchen and decided that she was done looking backward for the right fit for her life. She had remade her life once, run out on the prospect of a marriage to a man she didn't love, followed a dream she'd had, and she had made herself into someone she was proud of, someone she had worked so hard to be. She knows she's capable of that again. She can only move forward. That's what she decides.

A year ago, she had given up an amazing opportunity and turned back to everything that she knew, that was familiar, hoping this would be the time that it actually worked. It wasn't. Going back to the life she had always known isn't the answer; she can't live her life in a circle anymore.

With a very long, deep breath she pulls over the paper, flipping it open to the apartment listings. Joey had said she and Emma were welcome to stay as long as they needed, and she appreciates that. She would like to stay here, to surround herself with memories and all of the feelings they brought. It's would be so much easier, so much less painful. But she knows that she would only be trading one step back for another. She can do this. She knows that she can. For her daughter, for herself.

She reaches for a pen and starts to circle.


End file.
